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Diantha frowns later at their shared dinner, from which a certain member of their group is missing. "Where's Ash?" The rest of the most powerful trainers in the world shrug, popping food into their mouths with the dignity expected of trainers of their caliber.
"Who knows where he's gone," says Iris, shrugging, but nevertheless looks around with barely hidden concern in her gaze. The rest of the trainers look around the room for lack of anything better to do, unwilling to stand up and look for him but also somewhat worried at this point. Their special league funded meal is almost over and the one least expected to turn down free food is nowhere to be seen.
It is at this time that something strange occurs to Cynthia, as they all look around for their youngest member. "You've met Ash before?" she asks curiously. Diantha smiles fondly.
"Indeed I have. Gardevoir and I have battled him and his Greninja. At the time it was to test their new ability, but I also admired his skill as a trainer." She chuckles. "It must sound quite conceited of me, but I'm not easy to impress. He did make it to the finals of the Kalos League too. It's hard to forget him."
Cynthia smiles. "You and I have shared a similar experience with him, it seems." Diantha looks to her curiously.
"How so?"
"Ah, I met him when his rival at the time challenged me to a battle. They were quite the pair." She laughs lightly, reminiscing. "I watched the both of them grow to respect each other, though I must admit that I got to know Ash and his friends more personally. Ash is quite a fascinating person, a real pleasure to be around. He truly has grown so much since then." She smiles, fondly this time, eyes filled with pride. "I can't help but be proud of how far he's come. The same goes for Iris," she says, directing her smile to the long-haired trainer beside her. "It feels like it was just yesterday that you and Axew battled Garchomp and I. You've come a long way too."
Iris blushes, ducking her head. "Thank you! And next time, I won't lose to you! I promise."
Cynthia smiles. "I look forward to it."
The other Champions (and Alain, if you want to be technical) simply stare at the three trainers conversing as though they had forgotten the existence of the rest of them. At some point, one of them clears their throat, and the conversation stops as three annoyed heads turn to face the rest of the people seated at the table. "What?" Strange, awkward glances are exchanged between all those present. One would assume that the regional representatives of the world's regions would have much to discuss with each other, and were they to be present at this moment, would rethink everything they'd ever wondered about, including how much sharper the knife needed to cut through this awkward silence would have to be. Iris especially, had never felt so much tension in her life, and she had traveled with Ash through Unova, an entire region.
Leon, ever the outgoing people pleaser (though he's easily the most disconnected from his peers, which is actually pretty sad, but that's a story for another time), tries to initiate conversation once more. "So, who else has met Ash before?" he says, aiming for levity, because there's no way a 10 year old has met all the champions of all the regions already. The room comes alive in a chorus of 'me's' and 'I have's'. Leon balks, as does everyone else. More than anything, everyone seems surprised that Alain and Iris, who haven't been very popular figures until recently, have also met Ash.
"...You mean all of you have met Ash already?" asks Iris, eyes wide in surprise. There are a series of nods at the table, and she sinks into her chair. "Of course he's already met all of you. Why wouldn't he have?" Curious glances are leveled at her, but nothing is said.
"How do you know him, Iris?" asks Diantha. Iris smiles shyly. "Oh, I traveled with him through Unova when I started my journey," she announces, grinning. If the trainers at the table were anyone else, there would have been several loud exclamations of disbelief and shock. As it is, they aren't anyone else, and so there is a shared gesture of raised eyebrows and possibly the slightest drop of the jaw from the more emotive, while Cynthia and Iris are left unsurprised, having already been privy to this knowledge.
"He was such a little kid back then," says Iris, smiling. "He's still a little kid now, but he's grown so much too." Cynthia nods, and turns her head towards Alain, making the heads of the others turn to him. Alain's expression betrays nothing, but he shifts uneasily under the scrutiny of the several pairs of eyes that turn their gazes onto him, not used to having so much attention on him outside a battlefield.
"How do you know Ash?" asks Cynthia. Diantha smiles knowingly, and then smirks at the others' confused gazes.
"I battled him. His Greninja impressed me and so did he. We battled at the finals at the Kalos League too." Alain says no more, and the meaning is implied.
“You would have been a strong rival for him, no doubt," says Steven, glancing slyly at Alain, who looks back down at his plate, a small smile making its way onto his face as he reminisces about his experiences with Ash.
"And you?" asks Lance, turning to Steven, who just smiles.
“I met him when I was investigating some stones. They got lost in one of the caves, and I helped them out. And then I helped them fight off some weird crooks with a talking Meowth, although their names escape me." All eyes (except Leon's, who hasn't met them yet) open wide at that statement.
Lance turns to face Steven completely, his G-man brain whirring. "Who, Team Rocket?"
"Yes, that's the one. How did you know?"
"They're a massive organization based in the Kanto region, whose aim is to achieve world domination by capturing and controlling all pokemon. Their larger operations have been mostly unsuccessful and stagnant as of late, but we haven't been able to locate and capture them either, so there's been no progress there." He sighs. "The three agents you've encountered had been following Ash for a while. I can't believe they followed him till Hoenn."
Iris snorts. "Till Hoenn? They follow him everywhere! When he came to challenge me, he mentioned that they were still on his tail." She smirks. "Some things never change."
All the champions turn to stare at Iris, who just keeps smirking, relishing in their shocked expressions. "You mean they've been following him through his entire journey?" asks Cynthia, shocked to find that somehow, she isn't surprised. She'd met them in Sinnoh, and Unova too, of course, but she'd never imagined it had gone on for so long. Iris just nods, trying to control her laughter.
Diantha frowns. "I thought it was just a two time thing," she admits. "I thought they were tailing me to capture Gardevoir. Never did I imagine that they had been after Ash all along."
Faintly, they all hear Alain mutter, "me neither," confirming to all present that Team Rocket, in fact, tailed Ash like a shadow.
"If they're from Kanto, why haven't you done anything about it, then?" Leon questions, turning to Lance. Lance sighs again, growing weary of the Rocket talk.
“They've followed him through many regions outside my jurisdiction. I am confined to Kanto and Johto and bear no authority outside it unless called upon. Admittedly I kept tabs on Ash after I learnt about the whole thing with Lugia but-"
"What thing with Lugia?"
Lance stiffens, having been caught in a rare slip. "It's classified," he says, sitting up straighter. "I can't tell you."
"Come on, Lance," says Cynthia. "We are champions too, and we all care for Ash. There isn't anyone better to trust with this information."
Iris pipes up, saying, "she's right! Besides, I've been part of Ash's nonsense for a while too, so I'm dying to know what else he got up to when I wasn't around."
"Wait, there's more?" exclaims Alain, startling everyone with the sound of his voice, since they'd mostly forgotten he was still there.
"What... do you mean, more?" asks Leon, who's eyes are becoming progressively, almost worryingly wider with each passing second.
"Well..." Alain trails off, turning to Diantha, unsure of whether he's allowed to talk about classified incidents, unaware that no champion really followed that rule anymore, even if Lance made a fuss about the rules everytime they spoke, which wasn't often. Diantha cut to the chase anyway, leaving Alain to resist facepalming at what he perceived to be their absolute lack of self control.
"Ash played an important role in helping us stop Lysandre when he attacked Kalos a year ago." Most of the finer details of the incident had been classified, but it had been hard to ignore the very public footage of what had transpired. "I would argue that he played the most important role, along with Alain here. They really saved the region," she says, turning to Alain with a smile.
Alain allows a small smile to grace his face, now that he's become better at not blaming himself too much for what Lysandre had done. All faces turn to him, and he says, "It wasn't just us." Diantha smiles. "So it wasn't."
"There's a lot of context missing, but moving on," says Steven. Lance shoots him a look before he notices all eyes back on him.
“What?"
"Lugia?"
Lance sighs another time, already exhausted by his peers. "Fine. In the Orange Islands, there was a prophecy about a chosen one who would save the world, and Ash was that chosen one. Remember the freak weather that happened a few years ago? That was the incident. Remember how they stopped? That was Ash." The champions lean in, eager to hear more, but Lance goes tight lipped and no amount of poking and prodding is enough to get him to open up about more.
"That's all we're getting out of him, I suppose," says Cynthia, and Iris puts down the spoon she had been contemplating using to literally poke Lance with. Even her awe of him would not be enough to prevent her from doing what she could to get the stories out of him. The fact that it probably wouldn't work is a different thing entirely.
"Leon, you've met Ash too?"
Leon smiles. "Well, yes. There was an incident with a rampaging gigantamax pokemon after the previous finals, and Ash and his Pikachu performed a gigantamax without a band and subdued it. Then-"
"I bet he challenged you to a battle," Iris interrupts, smirking.
Leon blinks. "Yes, he did."
Diantha smiles. "He did the same to me too."
Iris laughs. "That's Ash for you!" She turns to the others, who seem to be slowly processing this information. "Who else battled him for their first meeting?"
"I battled his rival, if that counts," says Cynthia, shrugging. All eyes turn to Alain again, and he simply nods his head, having already pushed the memory of Team Rocket from his mind.
"Speaking of battling, I heard that he battled Wallace recently," says Steven, relishing in the fact that his rival had been defeated thoroughly (in a good natured way of course). "I see. So he won then?"
"Undoubtedly."
There are a series of nods from everyone in the table. "Just about what we'd expect from the first champion of Alola, I suppose." Leon says, and then frowns. "Did anyone even know that Alola had a league?" Everyone at the table shifts uncomfortably.
"To be fair," Lance mutters, "it only got official status recently. There's a lot of paperwork involved in these things. The Battle Commission is very strict when it comes to matters related to establishing new leagues, among other things. I still remember the fuss they made to allow me to represent both Kanto and Johto as Champion, which is why they only recently declared that I was champion of both. Just like they only started referring to Ash as Alola's first champion now."
"Still," Cynthia persists, "we should have paid attention to a tournament like this, since we call ourselves champions." A series of murmurs permeate the room as the champions shift guiltily.
"Do you think the matches would be up on the league website now? Ash only sent me the videos his mom took on her camera. And I can't access Alolan channels in Unova," says Iris, instantly making all the other Champions jealous, though they would never show it. "I suppose we can look," says Steven, pulling out his ridiculously expensive phone and tapping away to find the league website. There's the sound of scraping chairs as everyone gathers around him, trying to get a good look at the screen.
"It seems there was an exhibition match as well," observes Diantha, pointing at a video simply entitled "Alola League Exhibition Match." The video has already received a shocking number of views, surprising all of them. Clicking on the video leads them directly into a reel of highlights depicting a fight between a large purple dragonesque pokemon and...
"Arceus above, that's Tapu Koko!" exclaims Cynthia. Several pairs of eyes turn curiously to her. "Who?"
"Tapu Koko! The island guardian of one of the Alolan islands. It's an electric type legendary. They're known to be very reclusive, and yet the Tapu is battling Ash in a stadium full of people!" All eyes turn back to the screen as the purple pokemon goes down. "This other pokemon belongs to Ash?"
"Yeah, that's Naganadel!" says Iris. "Ash sent me some pictures of it. It's an Ultra Beast!" The room comes alive in murmurs of confusion.
"What's an Ultra Beast?"
Iris shrugs. "Ash didn't explain much. He said they were pokemon from Ultra Space. He said a lot more, but I didn't get it. I do know that it loves to paint, though. He was more interested in telling me all that stuff. What a kid," she says, fondly.
"Huh." All eyes turn back to the video.
"Look, the Z-move!" And sure enough, the screen shows a clash of two Z- moves, pushing against each other in a struggle for dominance.
"I've never seen a battle quite like this," mutters Leon, awestruck, as the moves collide. There are murmurs of assent from everyone else as they stare at the screen, riveted.
“I never thought I'd ever see the Z-move used by the Tapu. To think that Tapu Koko desired to use such power against Ash! It really must hold him in high regard," Cynthia exclaims, impressing upon everyone else how unprecedented the situation before them was, of a reclusive legendary taking such an interest in a young trainer and choosing to use such an ancient and powerful move to challenge him in a stadium full of people who had not dreamed that they would ever see it in their lifetime.
"Oh, and Ash said he invented the Z-move too," Iris pipes up, enjoying the expressions that take over the faces of her fellow champions.
"He made that?" yells Leon, all formality forgotten. Iris grins, relishing in their reactions to Ash's exploits.
"I can't wait to take him on!" says Cynthia, eyes alight.
"Neither can I!" says Leon, pumping his fists, a fire burning within them. "A battle with someone like Ash? We're sure to have a champion time!"
"One must really admire him. For a Pikachu to take down a legendary? I knew his Pikachu was powerful, but to see it take down such a powerful opponent? I'm in awe of their strength. Their bond must be very powerful indeed," observes Diantha.
The video ends with Ash's victory, and everyone returns to their seat, slumping into it. "He really is something else," muses Alain.
"Indeed. To have created a whole new Z-move just for themselves. Ash and Pikachu are quite amazing."
"And to have attracted the attention of a legendary too. Granted, this isn't the only legendary that has taken an interest in him, but-" The room explodes.
“Wait, there's more than one legendary?" Cynthia looks around, and smiles. "My experiences with him have led me to Dialga, Palkia and Arceus itself." The room erupts again, with all the champions abandoning any sense of decorum.
“What!"
Cynthia nods, a little stunned at their reactions. "He helped us stop Team Galactic not once, but twice. I dare say we couldn't have done it without him and his friends. He bonded with Azelf of the Lake Trio of Sinnoh, the embodiment of willpower."
"Huh, it fits," mutters Iris dazedly, not having been privy to this information.
"It might be a stretch, but I feel as though they recognized him." Cynthia muses for a moment. "A Meloetta also grew very fond of him when he stayed with me in Unova. It would not leave his side." She laughs. "Ash certainly has his way with legendaries."
Iris nods. "We met Zekrom and Reshiram too! Zekrom chose Ash, and he actually got to ride Zekrom! It was so cool! And, um, Victini really liked Ash too!"
Everyone stares.
"You've met Zekrom and Reshiram?" Lance asks, faintly.
Iris nods. "And Kyurem, and the Swords of Justice too! They're all so totally cool and powerful!" Lance looks almost faint hearing those names, and Iris gazes at him with mild concern, feeling relieved when he seems to compose himself.
Steven leans back in his seat. "How has this kid met every legendary in Sinnoh and Unova?"
Lance clears his throat. "I have reason to believe he's met all the legendaries in Kanto and Johto as well."
Everyone else leans back in their seats. "I suppose he's met every legendary in Kalos as well?"
Diantha smiles apologetically. "Zygarde travelled with him and formed a bond with a friend of his, and I heard of some incidents concerning legendary pokemon and an unidentified trainer, but now I have reason to believe it was Ash all along."
Iris drops her head onto the table. "And I thought him meeting you was special at some point," she says, glancing at Cynthia. "Every strange occurrence stopped when I stopped travelling with him. That should've been my first clue."
"So you're telling me, that every incident that happened around around the world in every region, was stopped by Ash?" Every champion pauses.
"He helped me take down Team Magma and Aqua in Hoenn."
"He helped me take down Team Galactic twice."
"We took down Team Plasma."
"He was instrumental in helping us defeat Team Flare."
"He helped me stop Chairman Rose and defeat Eternatus."
Lance places his head in his hands. "And who knows what he's done in Alola," he sighs wearily.
"And if what Iris says is to be believed, there are man more incidents we don't know about that he's stopped as well," Cynthia says.
"...Wow."
A stiff silence washes over the occupants of the room as they process this new information.
"So...this kid has been doing our jobs for us all this time."
The silence thickens, and no one really knows who spoke, too wrapped up in their own thoughts. The inescapable feeling of guilt washes over everyone, at the thought of having left a young boy to deal with such dangers, no matter how powerful he might be.
"Um... he wouldn't blame you or anything," Iris pipes up, shifting in place. "He'd say he didn't mind."
"It's still wrong," Steven mutters. "We should have been there." Everyone nods, a tense atmosphere weighing down on all of them.
"I can't help but imagine all the horrors that he must have seen, every single time. And we neglected our duty as Champions to let a child do our work for us. We've failed him."
No one says anything to that, too lost in their own thoughts, too wrapped up in their own feelings of guilt.
"We must do something about this," Diantha says, finally. "We cannot let our mistakes go uncorrected. We must take responsibility for our inaction." Everyone nods at that, morosely.
"You're right," Leon says. "We have to do something. It's better late than never, right?" The statement seems to be an attempt at lightheartedness, but there is no humor in his voice. To be learning so many things about the kid he'd thought was naive...
The champions look around at each other, the same guilt-ridden but determined look reflected in each one of their gazes.
"What should we do?"